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All Rise...

Judge Daryl Loomis was once tricked into a game of hide the egg. He didn't catch on until it was too late.

The Charge

Happy Easter!

Opening Statement

Everybody loves the holidays. Families getting together to eat, drink, and
fight; it's the way it should be. When it's just the family together during
these stressful times, people can get mad and argue, but can mostly forgive one
another. When other, unrelated people come into the fold, however, things can
quickly go from dormant to explosive. In Chilean director Sebastián
Campos's debut feature, he throws four outsiders into the mix. Easter doesn't
look too sacred this year.

Facts of the Case

It's Easter weekend and Mom and Dad sit waiting for their son Marco
(Néstor Cantillana), a freshman at university, to come home for the
holiday. Marco arrives, but he didn't come alone. He's brought his two best
friends who eye each other ravenously, a neighbor girl who never speaks and
Sofia (Patricia López), Marco's new actress girlfriend. She's ravishing,
charming, and outspoken. Maybe a little too much so because, after Mom has to
leave in an emergency and in a night of Ecstasy and crushed up valiums, the
bounds of family decency are thrown out the window.

The Evidence

I never thought I'd see a comedy with so much crying. There's no doubt that,
in many cases, they're going for laughs, but the situations the people are in
are so distressing and steeped in family strife that the laughter is of the most
uncomfortable kind. The Sacred Family rings true in this way.
Voyeuristically observing a family breaking down has its moments of comedy, for
certain but, knowing that everyone's family could be observed in a similar way,
it makes the jet-black humor cringe inducing. This humor is only the tip of the
iceberg that The Sacred Family tries to accomplish. Unfortunately, it's
nearly the only thing it gets right.

The story is something we've seen plenty of. A seemingly normal family gets
together for some reason when, out of nowhere, an external factor gets added
into the mix. In this case, that's Sofia. In another case, say François
Ozon's Sitcom, it's a rat, but it could be
anything. Whatever it may be, that element is the spark that explodes the powder
keg. Secrets and true feelings are revealed to a sexy and violent result. The
homosexual tension between the buddies, the father's jealousy of his son, and
Marco's yearning for his father's approval, this is all apparent from the first
moments of the film. Sofia's arrival quickly overshadows all of this, however.
Her beauty and oddly charming bluntness shock everyone, even Marco at times, and
her personality easily takes over the whole house. She doesn't act like a
succubus, deliberately trying to tear apart this family. She's an intelligent,
manipulative observer over these people, preferring to point out their flaws
rather than actively engaging with them. She's no villain, but her advice and
observations don't really help the situation, either.

Sofia's a great character, and the performance by Patricia López is
very well done, easily the best part of The Sacred Family. Had the cast
around her performed better, the story would have rung more true. The
performances are mostly improvised and, while this can add a great sense of
realism to a film, the improvisation shows and sounds more stilted than real.
Maybe, because the character of Sofia is an actress, her performance comes off
more scripted and better for the film. The rest of the cast plays their roles in
a hollow way, one that doesn't lend any weight to the mildly taboo subject
matter.

As shocking as it tries to be, The Sacred Family never goes over the
line. The film wants to revel in the father's lustful jealousy of his son and
the homosexual tension between the friends. While they show the acts the
characters commit against each other, the scenes never relate directly back to
the main core of the story. It's as if they made the movie, then brought the
actors back in to spice it up a little as an afterthought. The film is frank in
its depictions of the violent and sexual acts, but the scenes are never
explicit. This is, mostly, a good thing but, without enough depth to back up the
characters' motives, the scenes don't sit right with the rest of the film.

The story would be a lot easier to swallow, though, if the camerawork wasn't
so nauseatingly fluid. The camera often seems to be hung from a pendulum,
allowed to swing freely among the characters. You only realize there's a person
behind the camera when the shot pulls in to an intense zooms between swings. It
does settle down eventually into something more watchable, but the shots are so
off-putting at first that the film has a hard time recovering.

The Sacred Family, released by First Run Features as part of their
Global Lens Collection, is a bare-bones DVD with merely adequate picture and
sound. The image is grainy and soft; the non-anamorphic image is not very sharp,
though there are no noticeable transfer errors. The mono sound is sometimes hard
to hear, and dialogue goes from way too low to very high without warning. Aside
from a discussion guide in .pdf format and brief profiles of Sebastiçn
Campos and the nation of Chile, there are no extras.

Closing Statement

I've made The Sacred Family sound a little worse than it actually is,
I suppose. The story is somewhat shallow and the camerawork is completely
irritating, it's true. However, the performances are average, with good work
from López, and the film is occasionally sexy, even if it's not the
taboo-breaker it believes it is.

The Verdict

Guilty, The Sacred Family is released with time served. Now, let's go
hide some eggs!